Sunday, March 24, 2013

In the early days of the 20th Century, Singapore was a British Colony. But it was also a democracy. In the 1950s and 1960s, Singapore had a fair and independent judiciary, a criminal jury system, a free press, free and independent trade unions, social security and unemployment benefits and above all, fundamental human rights.

My father came to British Singapore from India because it was a democracy under British rule. He would not have come were it a dictatorship.

Once Lee Kuan Yew took over in independent Singapore, the people literally went from good to bad. Steadily and progressively throughout his one party rule up till today, he systematically dismantled the democracy which the British had set up. But even worse he made sure that he systematically brainwashed Singaporeans into accepting a life in perpetual fear of the government, and making them believe that any form of resistance against them is not only bad, but illegal as well. This is how it has gone on up till today, with Lee Kuan Yew's glittering skyscrapers shooting into the equatorial sky with modern roads and amenities but leaving the people totally bereft of freedom, any fundamental rights and an island almost emptied out of its educated and skilled who have all left for settlement abroad.

What is amazing is either his inability to understand or his deliberately ignoring the fact that educated and discerning human beings will not be satisfied just with tall buildings and good roads, they also need some self respect.

Totally ignoring this fact, he went along deliberately and openly abusing the legal system by turning the judiciary into nothing better than Kangaroo judges in their Kangaroo courts, totally denying a free and independent press, criminalizing free speech and expression and openly being corrupt by paying themselves millions of dollars as salary. And worst of all, he made it very clear through deliberate victimization of any politic critic through defamation actions and dismissals from employment that he will not tolerate any criticism whatsoever.

After doing this, what did Lee Kuan Yew expect? Did he expect educated professionals and their families to eat humble pie and merely sing along with him in his island?

Today, not only have I left, almost everyone else I knew in my school Raffles Institution have all probably left. And I mean the majority, not just a few. I don't know where they are over the globe, but I expect many are in Australia, New Zealand and the other English speaking western countries.

The ones who have stayed behind are those who did not have an education or skills enabling them to emigrate, or those unable to see the depths to which their lives and spirit has descended. They are either foreigners for whom such things as democracy and human rights do not really matter since they are not going to be there for long, and those who are ignorant and of course not to forget the bootlickers and sycophants who surround him like leeches for the good life he provides.

Lee Kuan Yew while building his skyscrapers has managed to deplete the island completely of its intelligentsia and professionals and today relies entirely on expatriate temporary workers and his cronies to run the show.

With this change, the true Singaporean way of life and its original character and culture has all disappeared, leaving Singapore as just an island peopled by some disparate foreigners who are there to make a buck as long as the going is good.

As for the true capable and thinking Singaporeans, they have simply said goodbye long ago.

Saturday, March 23, 2013

Have you ever noticed that not once, not even once, has any government minister ever referred to the Constitution; and neither has anyone else in the entire history of the island.

You have the perpetual claims in the local state controlled newspapers of what the government is trying to do for their people, this plan and that plan and this idea an that; but that is as far as it goes.

As for the people's ability to challenge anything that the government puts out is simply non existent. The papers are state controlled, so you cannot have your views heard. The TV and radio are state controlled so you cannot have your views heard. You are not allowed to protest even though the Constitution does guarantee it. You cannot criticize even though the constitution guarantees it.

In the end the dialogue ends up simply as one way traffic. The government orders and you obey. On occasions they may reach out to discover what people think but in the end, it is they and they alone who decide what is good for you, not you.

With over eager ministers trying to please the master himself without the steadying keel of the people through debate and criticism, the Singapore one party totalitarian state simply goes from one big mistake to another. This would not be the case if the people were allowed their say in public affairs as democracies do.

For instance today you have the overcrowding and overpopulation of a tiny island thorough indiscriminate immigration. As a result trains are overcrowded, buses are overcrowded and you simply cannot move through the throngs of people. This did not happen over night. It was because the people were completely denied the right to question ill advised government policies which are left to go askew without question.

You have an over populated Chinese sector while the Malays and Indians are becoming extinct through the Chinese racial preference in immigration. The Malay and Indian way of life is disappearing while the island becomes a totally Chinese island. This too did not happen overnight. It took decades to happen under the very noses of a voiceless populace.

As long as you continue to deny the people their rights under the Constitution, Singapore is doomed forever into become something which is completely alien to the character of what it was. I am afraid, it is already too late now, as the people have been so thoroughly brainwashed as to think that opposition to the government is something which is simply not done. They have also completely been fooled into thinking that as along as a law is enacted, it must be obeyed, although they do know that it is nothing but a one party state with no opposition whatsoever allowing them to legislate whatever they want.

As the government continues to silence the people into thinking that they can get away with anything they want, Singaporeans are doomed to hurt themselves more and more, in the economy, in social values and in every other way. Any country that desires to progress, requires the steadying keel of the people's input. Minus that you are, like Singaporeans are now, simply at the mercy of Lee Kuan Yew and his policies, good or bad. As to where it is all taking them, God only knows.

Friday, March 22, 2013

On the one hand, the Singapore strongman Lee Kuan Yew touts his Island as the single most paradise anywhere on earth; it has a huge GDP, gleaming skyscrapers that shoot out into the equatorial sky in close quarters, modern roads, modern telephones, modern everything.

Yet it appears nobody wants to live there! Singapore’s skilled and talented people are emigrating in droves to the West making its brain drain one of the highest in the world. A few years ago, the 91 year old Singapore superman –at least that is how many perceive him- had gone around the world where Singaporeans had fled pleading that they return. Yet nobody has ever shown the slightest interest in coming back. As if the intolerable brain drain was not bad enough, its fertility rate is the lowest in the world because no one wants to have any babies.

Contrary to what many thought about the mighty or presently invalid, as his is now, 91 year old Singapore superman as being God's answer to the entire world's problems, yet it appears he is somehow not able to solve this one.

You don’t need to be smart to know why. Even a cursory knowledge of the goings on in that island of his will immediately tell you why. It’s like this. If anyone is thinking of raising a family and children in a place, you first have to have some hope, some confidence in the future, some financial security, because without these things, bringing up children can be very tricky.

The problem with the Lee Kuan Yew dictatorship is that their plans have only one thing in mind, economic competitiveness, raising the GDP and making the island attractive to foreign investors. With this sole purpose in mind, their policies and rules simply are not conducive to family life. Here is why.

People are crammed into tiny pigeon hole high rise apartments there one above the other. Each room is so small; it can hardly fit 2 people, not a family of 5. There is no room for privacy at all. Land scarce Singapore with a government hell bent on cramming it like sardines simply allows no room for comfortable living in government housing where almost every Singaporean lives.

The government simply does not believe in any welfare or a government safety net for those in need. Therefore for each child you have, you have to pay school fees, food, clothes, transport and everything else. Every other child you add adds to your expense. Without money you are simply dead. If you have children, they too are dead. Not an attractive place to have children, let alone one.

As for the adults, there is no job security. Lee Kuan Yew's thought police are everywhere keeping an eye. Any wrong move or wrong sentiment, over heard by someone can cost you your job. Therefore the need to be politically correct at all times, in both mind and speech.

As for labor rights there are none. The idea is to make it as attractive as possible for foreign investment. This means there are no free trade unions, there is no legally binding minimum wage, and no right under law to security of employment. How does anyone dare to bring up children in a society where you can be fired the next minute and made penniless?

The government deliberately keeps the wages permanently low, so as to compete with other cheap labor countries. So when your wages are just enough to make ends meet while at the same time, costs continue to escalate for necessities, you are lucky if you can keep yourself going, never mind keeping a family of 5 going.

But the government has made it very clear they are not going to change these ridiculous policies. Their claim is that unless you continue to make the wages of Singaporeans perpetually low and their lives always miserable, you will not be able to compete in the global marketplace of cheap labor. And every other policy that makes the workers rights more secure and comfortable such as minimum wage laws, and strong unions are never allowed because for them, these things causes the island to become less competitive and therefore undesirable. Another often quoted mantra is that if you allowed even the slightest social welfare, everyone will become lazy and the whole economy will collapse.

You can see the problem here. The government's policies are simply not favorable for families and children. They are simply nonsensical. And as long as such harebrained Alice in Disneyland policies remain, the island will continue to lose its skilled people, no more children will be born and it would have to continue relying on migrant workers as they do now, until the local population either disappears completely or it is overrun entirely by foreigners. And that is not a good thing because it means the Singapore way of life would have gone forever.

As long as the government resists introducing some form of social security, some form of wage guarantees, some security of employment and a minimum wage that allows people to live a decent life, the doing away with Lee’s Kangaroo courts, and not forgetting restoring the people’s human rights, it has no hope whatsoever of correcting the abysmal decline in their fertility rates and it’s highest brain drain from Lee Kuan Yew’s paradise island.

has some bizarre observations by the Singapore 91 year old tyrant ready to kick the bucket. It is uncertain whether he utters the nonsense because he is ignorant or because he thinks we are a bunch of idiots whom he can con, like in “Lee Con Yew”, we will never know.

About the shrinking population of an already tiny one in a tiny Singapore island because no one wants to have any babies, he says

"He added Singapore is in a similar position with its low total fertility rate but the difference is that Singapore takes in migrants to make up for the numbers".

But he deliberately fails to give any explanation why the tiny local population is shrinking even further; why Singaporeans do not want to have any babies in spite of all the perks and benefits showered on them by the government. The fact that the majority of native Singaporeans want to leave and many foreigners want to take their place surely means something. The only reason for this is Singaporeans know what a disgraced banana republic Lee Kuan Yew's island is; one with no right to criticize, an island with rampant defamation lawsuits, a place without free speech expression or assembly, a place where you cannot even protest peacefully, a place from which a native Singaporean Gopalan Nair had no desire to live preferring instead a free and democratic USA.

And then he goes on to say of recent immigrants to Singapore

Mr. Lee said: "They will make progress but if you look at the per capita they have got, the differences are so wide. We have the advantage of quality control of the people who come in so we have bright Indians, bright Chinese, bright Caucasians so the increase in population means an increase in talent."

In this statement he wants us the reader to believe that talented immigrants, I assume people with some gray matter in their heads, would actually come to live and contribute to Singapore.

But he fails to mention why he thinks, when educated Singaporeans themselves such as Gopalan Nair who understands what Singapore is- nothing but a small time dictatorship, without any human rights whatsoever- have left the island for what it is; why does he think these talented educated foreigners would settle in an island such as this.

Is he trying to tell us that the talented Caucasians, Chinese and Indians do not know what a disgrace his island is; and even if they did not know initially, will they not surely know it in good time? And when they know, does he think they would be proud to call an island such as this home?

If any talented foreigner comes to work in Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore island, firstly he is obviously not talented because he is ignorant, and secondly even if he did, it would be like an Australian coming to work in the fields of remote Mali in Africa to help them in their backwardness, and certainly not because they would want to become proud citizens of the sub Saharan primitive country.

In conclusion, reading the article about the 91 year old tin pot tyrant's observations, I have only this to say. He knows he has made a mess of the place. He has been totally over confident of his power to subjugate Singaporeans and throw at them any nonsense he wants. It worked in the past. But now, it is too late pal. Singaporeans are not as stupid as they were. Today they have the Internet.

Far too many foreign businesses have been let in with far too many foreigners allowed to work them. If you slow the rate of immigration, the businesses would collapse and so will the economy. If you allowed the immigration to continue at the present rate, the tiny island will be left only with Chinese from China.

And as for his hope that a few talented foreigners will come to stay, if Gopalan Nair did not want to, and he thinks he is talented, why do think the talented from China India or elsewhere would think otherwise?

It is a major change, of course, which we hope we will be able to navigate safely over a period of time and not suddenly.

To make [government] more transparent and open to social media?

It’s completely open to social media. Previously, everything was orderly and predictable. Now there are many more voices, views and interests... and the outcome is a lot more difficult to predict, and the reactions are more difficult to judge.

For the last 52 years, first his father and now his son, also remotely by his father has systematically destroyed the free press, jailed dissenters, subverted the rule of law and turned the courts into Kangaroo courts, criminalized speech expression and assembly. It was all right to do it as long as the people were kept ignorant and voiceless. All that changed with the Internet. And what is worse, they have an English education. For the first time they don't have to take the nonsense anymore. They are no longer as helpless as the father and son would like.

To make matters worse, just as they did anything they wanted to their helpless subjects, they brought in far too many Chinese from Communist China to replace the huge numbers leaving the island.

What is left is an island that is bleeding its people. They are leaving. They don't want to take that anymore. They are leaving the island for settlement abroad. They don't want to live like sheep or poodles. The foreigners who come in to replace those leaving have no interest in their new home. They are there temporarily before they too leave; only to be replaced by equally disinterested others.

Father and son dictatorship have finally realized the game is up. If they curtail immigration, the island economy and business will collapse. Far too may people rely on these foreign businesses. If they continued the unlimited immigration by flooding the island with foreigners as they are now doing, there won't be any Singaporeans left, just foreigners.

They can democratize the island, but if they did, they themselves, the dictators which they are, would be unseated. If they don't democratize, more Singaporeans would leave the island speeding the island's collapse. It is a case of tails I lose and heads I lose.

I should now say, I told you so. Old Chinese saying, dictatorships never last long. Poor Lee Kuan Yew's son has run out of ideas. All we have to do is wait and watch the collapse.

Saturday, March 16, 2013

It appears that the Singapore dictatorship made up of father, the bedridden senile 91 year old Lee Kuan Yew who has lost his normal senses and mobility and the son whom he appointed Prime Minister will never learn.

Only last week one of his Ministers in the Labor Ministry had sent a lawyers letter to a Committee Member of the opposition Singapore Democratic Party threatening, to sue him for defamation of character in Lee's island Kangaroo Courts unless he apologized and paid damages of $5,000.00 for something he wrote in his Face book on the unjust treatment of Chinese bus drivers who were recently jailed just for going on strike. Please see Singapore state controlled newspaper report http://www.todayonline.com/singapore/minister-receives-s5000-damages-defamation-case

Needless to say, once again, anyone reading what this man wrote will not consider it defamatory of anyone let alone something which attracts a damages award.

But the aforementioned 91 year old comatose bedridden old fellow, Lee Kuan Yew is his name, unfortunately continues to believe that the only way to govern is by intimidating and silencing everyone in his island through defamation of character law suits which he will invariably win before his well chosen Kangaroos in his Kangaroo Courts. In fact even before he steps into any courtroom in his island one already knows that he has won. The only question remaining is the amount of the damages.

You will see that expectedly this poor official in the opposition party instantly apologized, instantly paid the fine and would have even done the hop skip and jump if so demanded, under the imminent threat of being forthwith sued, jailed and bankrupted not necessarily in that order.

This is the sort of fear that the 91 year old bedridden dictator has managed to successfully instill in his entire tiny population of about 2.5 million locals and another 2.5 million recently arrived immigrants, mainly from Communist China.

The local Singaporeans of course are fully aware of the complete lack of credibility and integrity in the Singapore courts run by a bunch of handpicked minions specifically ordered to abuse the law to destroy every single one of Lee's political critics.

In the past there has been a steady activity in defamation actions against critics over decades, which include another of Lee Kuan Yew's victims, JB Jeyaretnam who perhaps holds a world record in the number of defamation law suits filed against him, and the amount in damages which has run into millions ordered against him, and bankruptcy as well to keep him out of politics.

Today’s Chee Soon Juan of the same opposition party has suffered the same, if not a worse fate for his daring to stand up to the old bedridden tin pot tyrant.

And in the list of his victims are countess others including myself, punished through abusing the law for daring to criticize him.

Any astute foreign investor in Singapore would know, just as local Singaporeans that the island lacks the rule of law, whose application can vary from one to another depending on who you are.

Besides the law being routinely abused to punish critics, its application constantly varies on the circumstances. One example is the Tak Boleh Tahan (translates in English to mean "I cannot take this anymore") in 2008 when I was in Singapore for a short visit. The Singapore Democratic Party members were prosecuted and convicted for holding a peaceful protest whereas Lee Kuan Yew’s people were allowed to do the same thing at the same location with impunity.

An examination of SingaporeIsland court cases over the years would show the double standards very clearly; one law for government supporters and another law for its critics.

It's like this, if you want to live a peaceful life, join the 91 year old bedridden dictator and sing his songs. If not, brace up for some rough going.

This message is so entrenched and understood in the tiny island of no more than about 2.5 million locals today that it has begun to hurt the Lee government and the island's interests. Tens of thousands of educated and skilled locals faced with this Hobsens choice of either joining the bandwagon or being marginalized or even punished have decided to take the third option; they have left the island for settlement abroad. Also the vast majority of lawyers have either refused to practice law, emigrated and the younger ones have refused to enter the profession. Today the island with no less than 5 million has no more than 2,000 local lawyers and diminishing. There is another 2,000 foreign lawyers desperately brought in to fill the void.

Although it is impossible to know how many foreign investors have either backed off from investing in the island or have pulled out their investments due to the island's lack of the rule of law, we will never know.

With the judiciary in the island known to be corrupted in their abusing the law politically, the island continues to suffer a lack of arbitration work which they are actively trying to attract. Who in their right minds would want to arbitrate a case at a place which routinely abuses the law for the government's political ends. Who would want to come to an island of Kangaroo judges and Kangaroo courts?

As Singapore continues to abuse the law, uses Kangaroo courts and Kangaroo judges and openly shows that its laws and rules are bent one way for some and another way for others, its problems will continue and increase. Even more Singaporeans will leave the island, even more investors will not invest in the island, and it will end up as it is today, with criminals and bank embezzlers being the only ones wanting to come because no one else will accept them.

Friday, March 15, 2013

You know what happened to Yugoslavia. The country had diverse races, diverse religions and diverse ethnicities, all pulling at each other ready to explode, except for one man, its leader Marshal Tito who somehow managed to keep it together under an iron fist and totalitarian rule. The moment he died, it fell apart.

Do you see the same similarities with Singapore? Old dictator Lee Kuan Yew is 91 years old, probably comatose lying in bed, ready to die any minute. Everyone else in government is nothing more than his minions, capable only of carrying out orders and no one who can think and act independently. If there was anyone with even a modicum of independent thinking and leadership, they have all either packed up and left the island for fear of arrest and bankruptcy. Those who had remained are all silenced through threats of bankruptcy in his Kangaroo courts.

What else? You have a local population who have been overwhelmed by foreigners, and consumed in xenophobic fear anger and hatred ready to slit the throat of the first foreigner they see except for the fear of the consequences of such an action.

You have the Tamils and the Malays in Singapore who have been sidelined and discriminated by the ethnic Chinese government of Lee Kuan Yew, they too boiling with indignation and hate ready to do the same to any Chinese looking person they see except for the restraint of punishment if they did.

And then you have the overwhelming numbers of Singaporeans emigrating to the West, you have the almost non existent birth rate with almost no babies being born and the huge section of population in their eighties dying of old age and depleting the population even further.

I have no doubt whatsoever that if Singapore is lasting today underneath the glittering outward visage of its multi storey skyscrapers, one thing is certain; its continued existence is greatly in doubt.

Just as Yugoslavia post Tito, Singapore post Lee Kuan Yew has no possibility of remaining intact. The Malays and Indians would withdraw cooperation with the Chinese; Lee's son, the Prime Minister appointed by his father, would simply leave once he knows he has become irrelevant; the opposition would clamor for power among themselves; foreign companies with their assets and their employees would simply leave and Singapore would be where it was 50 years ago, nothing but a backwater.

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

For a lawyer with a Singapore license, being disbarred can turn out to be something to be indeed proud about in the one party totalitarian police state.

I used to have a Singapore lawyer license since the time I used to be a lawyer there, although I had since moved to California.

For writing a blog post critical of a thoroughly corrupt Singapore judge, Belinda Ang Saw Ean, who was prostituting her judgeship for Lee Kuan Yew to destroy his political opponents, in this case Dr. Chee Soon Juan, through stage managed court cases, I was sent to jail for 3 months and subsequently disbarred in Singapore.

There simply was no basis under law to have me disbarred in Singapore which is another shameful example of the law being misused for their political ends. Needless to say neither the State Bar of California where I now practice nor the English and Welsh Bars where I have membership have bothered even to look into it.

In a pleasant surprise, through this disbarment in Singapore, I find myself now in illustrious company. JB Jeyaretnam, Singapore’s great lawyer and political opponent of Lee Kuan Yew was also disbarred for his trouble in fighting for freedom in the island. Tang Liang Hong who rightly pointed out that Lee Kuan Yew is corrupt during the 2006 Singapore general elections was sued and bankrupted, and presumably disbarred as well. Chee Soon Juan presently Secretary General of the Singapore Democratic Party, another staunch critic of Lee was sued for defamation numerous times bankrupted and jailed. He is not a lawyer but had he been one, I am sure he would have been disbarred as well.

These are upright men, men of courage and conviction, admirable specimens of the human race who were punished by Lee Kuan Yew for doing what was right. Today, I Gopalan Nair, also have the honor of walking among them, because I too was disbarred because I had the courage to call Singapore Judge Belinda Ang Saw Ean a disgraceful corrupt woman who saw fit to prostitute her judgeship to please her master for personal gain. Tell me please, what greater joy than this can there be for a man.

In fact if any lawyer is disbarred in Singapore for criticizing the Lee Kuan Yew government, instead of that being a source of shame as it usually is in any other country, in Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore it is a badge of honor. Now I can proudly claim that I was disbarred from practicing law in Singapore because I had the courage to stand up to a dictator and point out that his judges are nothing but disgraceful people who abuse their position to please Lee Kuan Yew so as to enrich themselves.

And I would proudly proclaim to the world with pride the fact that I had the opportunity of being disbarred in Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore.

Lee Kuan Yew hates people such as me. The only way he can rule, as he has himself admitted is when people are afraid of him and obey him. The moment you have the audacity to call his bluff publicly, he simply cannot tolerate it. No one in Singapore today is able to write something like this and put his name to it, because he would be sued or arrested, one or the other. This leaves Singaporeans only two choices, if in Singapore do not criticize, if you wish to do so anyway, and then leave the island for settlement abroad.

This is why Lee Kuan Yew is suffering from an intolerable brain drain from the island. And there are people such as myself who live abroad who continue to be a thorn on the side of Lee Kuan Yew pointing out to the world that he is nothing but a bully, his entire government. As for him, he has for the first time has run out of ideas on how to silence his critics from abroad.

The worst thing of all for Lee Kuan Yew would be to disbar a lawyer in his island, only for his intended victim to continue publicly flaunting the disbarment as if it was an Olympic Gold Medal.

Friday, March 8, 2013

If a traveler just landed at Singapore’s ChangiInternationalAirport and took a walk along SingaporeIsland’s city, he would see the vast majority of the people to be only of Chinese descent. In fact more than half of Singaporeans today are now recently arrived immigrants mainly from the PeoplesRepublic of China and a slightly smaller number made up of people of Chinese descent from neighboring Malaysia.

The island government has for some time declared their policy of bringing in large numbers of immigrants because far too many local Singaporeans are opting to leave for settlement abroad especially to Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the USA.

Although tiny Singapore needs skilled and educated immigrants to replace those who are leaving, it's government’s main source of immigrants are just two countries, the PeoplesRepublic of China and ethnic Chinese from Malaysia.

Although the global talent pool is obviously spread out across the world, includingEastern Europe, Australasia, and Latin America and elsewhere, and allowing the best qualified immigrants to come to Singapore regardless of their countries of origin would obviously be in the island's best interest, the Lee Kuan Yew government appears willing to accept only Chinese or Chinese looking people and willingly forgoes all those better qualified candidates from the rest of the world.

This deliberate racial policy obviously impedes the development of the island which would have benefited much more had they allowed the best regardless of who they are.

The reason for the Lee Kuan Yew government in this blatant racial discrimination in favor of Chinese looking people is the fear they have towards non Chinese people. They fear that people from Eastern Europe, Middle East or Latin America or elsewhere might not be willing to live in fear and subjugation as the Chinese with their Confucian submissive character would, and this may be a threat to their continued rule over the voiceless and timid Singaporeans of today. It is their hope that Chinese from China and ethnic Chinese from Malaysia would, like Singapore citizens, willingly eat humble pie, toe the line, not rock the boat and accept any nonsense Lee Kuan Yew throws at them.

Such a policy is highly dishonest and it shows a complete lack of integrity on the part of the government.

In essence, what they are doing by only accepting Chinese nationals is to forgo the best interests of the island by refusing to accept better qualified people from elsewhere in the world, for their own self interest to hold on to power by accepting only Chinese from China, whom they believe to be as submissive and obedient as the locals adn therefore not a threat to their grip on power.

As a result of their selfish policies which damage the island's best interests, you find masses of Chinese immigrants in SingaporeIsland many of whom cannot even speak English with their uncouth mannerisms which they bring with them from their country. By restricting their immigrants from only one source, China, they are losing out on the much larger talent pool of the rest of the world from which to choose from.

It is Lee Kuan Yew’s dictatorial government, without the rule of law, which is the main reason why the island has one of the highest rates of brain drain in the world. At the same time, if you restrict the pool of skilled people around the world from which to choose immigrants, you are ending up with the best leaving the island that are replaced by these third rate people from China. With this sort of policy, the island will decline even faster than it is doing now.

"Four more foreign law firms will be allowed to practice in Singapore after a second round of licenses were awarded, the Law Ministry announced on Tuesday.

Under the Qualifying Foreign Law Practice Licenses scheme foreign law firms are allowed to practice in all areas of law except domestic areas of litigation and general practice, like family or criminal law. They are given an initial five years license period.

The four firms are: Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, Jones Day, Linklaters and Sidley Austin. They join six other law firms awarded licenses in 2008.

Chosen from 23 applications, the four firms have "extensive global networks" and "deep expertise in key practice areas". This will support the growth of the economy here and the development of legal services, the ministry said in a statement. The ministry added that the scheme also aims to reinforce Singapore's position as a premier global and regional legal services hub."

Their working in Singapore of all places is difficult to understand. I am not sure if they are aware that Singapore has in reality no Constitution. Although such a document exists, every single Constitutional right is completely ignored. There is no right to free speech, expression, assembly, a free press; simply nothing. Perhaps to a lesser degree, it is no different from Assad's Syria.

And its judges are all poodles for Lee Kuan Yew government. They routinely deliver judgments tailored to please the Lees.

As for police powers, they are unlimited. They can search you anytime, anywhere and even lock you indefinitely.

In 2008, I was jailed, deported and disbarred in that island, for writing a blog critical of Lee's judges. (Not that the Singapore disbarment has affected me one bit, since the California Bar where I practice have decided to totally ignore it, and so has the English Bar of which I am also a member). Chee Soon Juan, the Secretary General of an opposition party has been repeatedly jailed and bankrupted just for exercising his human rights of free speech. So have a series of political opponents who have been destroyed for doing just that.

It is puzzling now to see top law firms from respectable proud and well respected democracies such as the UK, Australia and elsewhere, who must be fully aware of what Singapore is in this Internet age, willingly coming to Singapore for the work. Being motivated for profit is understandable, but should they not also consider the way they make that money. Is not having an office in Singapore tantamount to giving their tacit approval to a regime which openly flouts the human rights of their citizens.

Moreover this raises a very important question. Regardless of any area of the law, it sometimes has to do with constitutional law. For instance in a libel case, a defense would be the right to express oneself. The same would apply in an intellectual property case and for that matter in a wide variety of situations. The question here is how are these foreign lawyers who are accustomed to appear before independent judges in their countries, going to come to terms with the decision of a Kangaroo legal system which denies such rights?

Have they considered how they would deal with a situation when they have to appear before a disgraced Lee Kuan Yew judge such as Belinda Ang Saw Ean who willingly bends the law for her master's pleasure?

Granted, most of the cases dealt with by these foreign lawyers will be commercial in nature, are we to assume that a judge who willingly abuses the law to please Lee Kuan Yew in a defamation lawsuit will somehow become impartial in a case non political in nature?

Have these foreign law firms been told that Singapore, a crowded island of no less that 5 million only has about 2,000 local lawyers and a shrinking number at that. And do they know that the reason for this de minimus totally inadequate number is because all the local lawyers who know first hand what Lee's Kangaroo courts are, have decided not to have anything more to do with it and have all left for Australia and the West. And do they know that they, the foreign lawyers, are in fact taking the places of Singapore lawyers who have left the island permanently in disgust?

And are they aware that just like Gopalan Nair, myself, a former Singapore lawyer who has left not wanting to have anything to do with that disgraced legal system, so have thousands of other lawyers who have all left the island permanently for settlement abroad.

I am not sure if they know this or don't but sooner or later they will have to come to terms either with their conscience or their clients when things go wrong, when they will realize that it is not so good working in dictatorships like Singapore or North Korea. It is not good for their soul and neither is it for their client; unless of course he is a money launderer millionaire of which there are many running around in Lee Kuan Yew’s paradise island.

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About Me

Determined to find the Truth.
Born Singapore, educated Winstedt School 2 (next to Monks Hill in Newton, Singapore) Raffles Institution, National Service, some travel in Europe, then law studies England, return to Singapore, practiced for 10 years, active Workers Party member, stood elections 1988 and 1991 in Singapore, was harassed and persecuted by Lee Kuan Yew for my political beliefs, left for USA, obtained asylum and admitted California State Bar, practice law ever since in Fremont California near San Francisco. Relinquished Singapore citizenship 2005 because I was not prepared to permit Lee Kuan Yew to unjustly retain my CPF funds if I remained Singapore Citizen. On principle, the only correct thing for me to do was to give it up, for my CPF funds. I am an American Citizen as of 2004.